“I'll just ask the landlady, she'll be likely to know if there is any place here, just for a souvenir of Frankfort.”
“Yes,” said Holcombe, “I suppose she knows.” And, as he spoke, the phantom face was directly in his mind's eye, and he could not drive the vision away.
“And now, old fellow, suppose you show me the lions here,” said Ellice; “you have been here longer than I have.”
So they walked out, and of course in due time came to the high, irregular houses bordering the curious Juden-Strasse. It was Friday evening, and the street was full of people hurrying to one spot; the air was balmy, and told of summer; the scene was very striking. The stream of people disappeared under the archway of a splendid Moorish-looking building, with Hebrew characters carved above the portal. It was the new synagogue. The two friends followed the men; the women were lost to view in the stair-cases leading to the galleries. A gorgeous lattice-work defended these galleries, and the assemblage in the main part of the temple were men with their hats on and light veils or shawls across their shoulders.
The service began; low, plaintive chants resounded through the building; sometimes the congregation joined. It was very solemn, and Henry [pg 417] Holcombe seemed fascinated. Some one passed him a book and found the place for him. And now came the prayer for the mourners, the mourner's Kaddisch, as he saw it printed before his eyes. There was a stir among the people, and he could hear the women's clothes rustling in the gallery. Those who had recently lost friends and relations stood up during the intercession, and then another prayer was offered up in German. Holcombe thought the sound of the old Hebrew was like the passing of water through a narrow rocky channel; it was soothing and flowing, sad and majestic, and he wondered if the girl he had seen once thought and felt about it as he did.
When the crowd dispersed, he tried to linger at the entrance, watching the women as they passed out. His friend was hardly so patient, and reminded him of the table d'hôte they had most likely already missed.
“I am afraid,” he said, “your people would scarcely approve your admiration of the pretty Jewesses.”
Holcombe blushed and moved away, and, just as he came out on the sidewalk, a girl in black passed him slowly, with an anxious, absent look.
“By jove! that is a pretty face!” exclaimed Ellice; but the other said nothing. For the second time, he had seen the face he was always dreaming of, “She looks like an angel,” he thought, “and yet she is not even a Christian.”
“I never saw a German Jewess like that,” his friend went on to say. “She looks like a Spaniard.”